Come join the Raid from the Heart this Saturday!

Who: You’re kidding, right? Everyone! Yes, even level 1’s on foot. This is not an individual achievement run, this is faction versus faction team action! Our motto? No Gnomes left behind!

After all, we might need a snack later. Just kidding! :)

When: Saturday (tomorrow!) October 16th, approximately 12:30 PM. Scheduled to last no later than 2:15 PM.

Where: See below for detailed instructions and maps for BOTH factions!

I’m inviting everyone to come visit the Kael’thas-US World of Warcraft server on the afternoon of Saturday, October 16th to take part in the;

2010 Raid from the Heart in-game celebration!

Everyone, and I mean everyone out there that has access to the World of Warcraft game on the US side of the pond is welcome to come join the craziness. Young, old, level 80 or level 1, Horde or Alliance or an RP in between, there will be something for everyone to take part in and have fun!

The Kael’thas-US server is not a PvP server, so as long as you do not flag yourself or attack NPCs of the opposite faction, you should be safe from any potential spoiling attacks.

What’s it for?

Please see our previous post announcing the event for far more details about why we’re doing all of this. At this time, one day before the event is scheduled to kick off, I want to make sure everyone knows where to go and what we’re gonna do.

Here’s the plan! It’s really not that bad, both factions have their own sections with maps and routes laid out!

On Saturday, October 16th, around 12:15 PM server time, folks should begin gathering for the event at their factions’ starting areas to prepare for a competitive team race!

Those For the Horde will gather together at Stillwhisper Pond, just outside the gates of Silvermoon City.

The Alliance will gather together in the picturesque village of Goldshire, in Elwynn Forest outside Stormwind City.

While everyone logs in and gathers together at the starter areas, there are four different things that you can do to get into the act.

The first thing you can do is join the global chat channel for the event, “Raidfromtheheart”, the same channel name for both faction sides. If you’ve never set up a custom chat channel before, you can visit this old post of mine from last year for detailed instructions – with pictures! Just use the name “Raidfromtheheart” (without the quotation marks) when typing in the name of the channel, and you’re all set!

The second thing you could do, once you’re in the chat channel, is ask for an invite into one of the raid groups. We’re going to have raid groups so that we can try and make sure that every participant is in a raid group with at least one Mage for later ‘porting around.

Yes, we do have Mages. We’ve got confirmation that Darthregis the funky Troll Magefrom the Zug Initiative will be hanging with the Horde, and Hoochieboots (please don’t hold me to that spelling) from Obsidian Annihilation will be providing Mage firepower for the Alliance!

The third thing you could do, IF you happen to be visiting on a character that isn’t already in a guild, is request an invite into one of the guilds created just for this event!

On the Horde side, the guild name is “Raid to the Heart”, and on Alliance side the guild name is “Raid from the Heart”. You can request a guild invite from anyone that you see in either guild at any time, because every guild member of every rank has the ability to perform invites. So, you don’t even need to wait until the day of the event to get into a guild, if you’d like to get an early start.

And the fourth thing you can do is dress appropriately! There will be Red Linen Shirts for all that attend, both in the guild banks available for ALL members to remove, and on the field to be handed out. If you join one of the guilds, both guilds have fun and appropriate Heart tabard designs, and each guild bank has enough gold, and permissions, that all members can take a gold to buy a Tabard to wear.

Thank you to those that volunteered for all the incredible crafting and gathering that’s gone on in support of this event, on both factions. A huge thank you post is in the works. :)

Okay, now that we’re gathered together and we’re all ready, what’s this about a race?

The plan is, right around 12:30 PM both factions will kick off the race, with one joint destination; the Thandol Span that crosses the watery chasm between Arathi Highlands and the icky croc-infested wilds of the Wetlands.

The Horde Race Route

The Horde’s proposed route is to take off from Stillwhisper Pond north through the gates of Silvermoon City, hopping all the way, until we reach the Sunfury Spire, enter the Inner Sanctum, use the Orb of Translocation and teleport directly to the Ruins of Lordaeron just outside of Undercity.

From there, the bouncing, hopping horde of red shirted raiders will head out the gates and take a sharp left, following the road through Silverpine Forest, the Hillsbrad Foothills, and finally passing through the Arathi Highlands to reach the north side of the Thandol Span.

Once at the Thandol Span… well, let’s get the Alliance caught up before we get into that, shall we?

The Alliance Race Route

The Alliance’s proposed route is to leave the bucolic scenery of Goldshire behind, pouring through the front gates of Stormwind on a least-time course for the Dwarven District, before entering the Deeprun Tram and taking a ride on the raiding rainbow to Ironforge. The hopping happy Alliance will come out in the Tinker Town section of Ironforge, and head on out the Gates of Ironforge to make their way through Dun Morogh, pass for a brief moment through the north end of Loch Modan by way of the North Gate Pass, and from there across Wetlands and up to the south end of Thandol Span.

Now, the routes might seem kinda uneven, but the great random equalizer is the Deeprun Tram. Delays there can really make or break an Alliance time. A few trial runs made the outcome seem pretty evenly matched, so it should be anyone’s game!

Okay, so there’s a race, and we all end up facing off at the Thandol Span. Then what?

Oh, I’m so glad you asked!

Dance Fight!!!

The first bit of proposed (totally cheesy) fun is a big faction vs faction dance fight, as Horde and Alliance face off on the Thandol Span, north side staring down south side in a /dance fight, winner take all! Screenshots will abound as each side tries to look more menacing and dangerous than the other by displaying their totally awesome dance moves.

Hey, I saw this on West Side Story, and immediately I was gripped by how fierce and terrifying these dancing warriors could be as they protected their turf with threatening twirls and spins. We’ll just have to see if we can live up to the legend!

From there, it’s expected that the entire dance fight will degenerate into a chaotic melee of dancing and bouncing around. Once we’re all milling about, a section of the Thandol Span off to one side will be kinda used for taking screenshots with folks, as shown below.

A screenshot stage? Sure!

I figure it’ll be nice to take 15 minutes for screenshots there with whoever you’d like. I know I’d be happy to take screenshots on Bigbearbutt with anyone that would like to be seen in public with me, and I invite any and all other bloggers that may be thinking of attending to volunteer for screenshots as well and throw your names into the hat (or the comments below). We can do group shots too! Sound fun yet?

After the screenshots and /dancing and assorted mixing and milling and mooing around on the Thandol Span, it’ll be time for the grand screenshot event of the afternoon.

The Grand Heart!

At the right moment, which will at this time probably be around 1:30, give or take a few minutes, the roar will go forth, and everyone will be prompted to take a long dive off the east side of the Thandol Span, into the water far, far below. There, everyone will be formed up into a great big heart (or a teeny, tiny heart depending on how many of us are there for the event), and one lone, dry person will be left standing up on the bridge to take the screenshots.

Once every gets encouraged into being in the heart, and it looks all pretty and the screenshot is complete and stuff, it’ll be time for the final official activity of the afternoon.

The Grand Finalé

Both factions will climb up out of the water (thanks to the ramp conveniently located on the north side of the river, see the picture below), and right there on shore our friendly Mage volunteers will open Portals to bring the entire Raid all the way to the heart of Dalaran itself!

Once in Dalaran, the entire Red Shirt wearing Raid from the Heart will take a well-earned victory lap, bouncing and hopping and /cheering around the main square, inevitably driving the /Trade chat locals insane, before splitting off and entering their respective faction Portal Chambers to take a portal directly to Shattrath.

Wait, Shattrath? Why Shattrath?

In Shattrath, we are all going to stream on down to the World’s End Tavern, where we will officially end the afternoon’s extravaganza by enjoying a concert given by the Artists Formerly Known as the Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, promptly at 2:00 PM!!

That’s right! Our plan for the grand finalé is for everyone to end the afternoon drinking, dancing and enjoying a great band in a bar floating on a rock in the middle of the Twisting Nether!

Can you get any more epic than that?

Okay, so that’s the Big Plan. But what else should I know?

I know that some other bloggers are hoping to attend, including Gnomageddon the Insane, who is actually thinking of being up at 4:30 AM his local time Sunday morning in order to be there with us.

Now, while I don’t expect anyone to be that hardcore, if you are a blogger and are thinking of attending, I’d love it if you could mention it in the comments here along with your character name, so that your fans know to look forward to having their screenshots taken with you!

For myself, I am still not sure which faction I will be running with at the start. I am the guild leader of both guilds, with Windstar my NElf Hunter on the Alliance side and Bigbearbutt the Druid on the Horde side. Right now, I’m leaning towards being on my Druid on Horde side for the start in Silvermoon City, with Cassie on one of her Sidhe Devils characters with the Alliance in Elwynn Forest, and then switching over at the Thandol Span.

That way, of course, I can park one character at the Thandol Span in advance. :)

However things work out, whether you can attend or not, I really hope that everyone has FUN tomorrow with whatever you are doing. If you can’t be there, I promise there will be massive screenshot posts following rapidly… we’ll try to make you feel as if you were there!

15 thoughts on “Come join the Raid from the Heart this Saturday!”

My fresh new Tauren Druid “Tishtoshtesh” will be there if at all possible. I had to grind quickly up to 15 to get the new Bear form (Cat form is at 8 now… Smart!), and as a trial account, it’s limited… but running with everyone should be easy enough.

I remember seeing the screenshots of masses of pink-shirted toons on the WoW community site Screenshot of the Day and wondering what kind of event it was. Later when I started reading blogs and learned about the Raid for the Cure, I realized that that must be what all those screenshots were from, and it became even cooler to me. I’m excited about this event and really hope that I can be a part of it :D